


Duklear Meltdown

by LizLuvsCupcakes



Series: Remus Finds a FamILY [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Autistic Burnout, Autistic Meltdown, Autistic Remus Sanders, Deceit is here but he's only really mentioned, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, Is deceit an ableist?, No big confrontation yet, Onions, Platonic Intruality, Sensory Overload, Stimming, Unsympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, asd, blood tw, depiction of an autistic meltdown, hitting self and biting self specifically, i don't know yet, internalized ableism, just a bit I promise, mom Liz is projecting onto remus again, not officially but he is, physical violence, platonic LAMPR, self harm stims, sensitivity to food, sensitivity to touch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:42:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24533254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizLuvsCupcakes/pseuds/LizLuvsCupcakes
Summary: Suddenly, it all becomes way too much for Remus, all at once, and he throws one of those ridiculous tantrums that he thought Snake had helped him outgrow. But it seems they just grew with him.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton, Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton & Dark Creativity | Remus, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Remus Finds a FamILY [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728466
Comments: 32
Kudos: 169





	Duklear Meltdown

**Author's Note:**

> This is... Kind of a vent fic? I recently realized how much of my self harm stims are stemming from my own internalized ableism and I wanted to try to put that in words. I did a piss poor job, I know. Either way, have some angst!
> 
> WARNING: graphic descriptions of self harming stims ahead; Patton gets hit in the face, there's a bit of blood ngl. Graphic descriptions of a character's distaste for onions, graphic description of a character's emotional meltdown/sensory overload episode.
> 
> (why did I write this. why am I posting it now. Why am I letting other people see it. HALP.)

Remus couldn't tell you what had happened. 

He'd felt on edge all day, he'd known that. But he was just being silly. Nothing was really _wrong,_ there was no fighting or stress going on, apart from… that one incident with Snakey. But really, he hadn't even been there, had only heard the screaming through the door. And, side quest, in what world, _Virgil,_ was it going to be a good idea to open the news to him about Thomas with, “hey, Deceit, uh… wouldn't it be just, the funniest shit if Thomas ended up needing his appendix out like _now_ and it turned out he couldn't go to the callback _or_ the wedding?”

But he'd stood there. He'd listened in, ready to call Virgil back to the commons if things got really ugly between him and Snakes. But he'd had to listen to every word, and every word set his teeth on edge. Virgil had screamed in that big, scary voice, _How can you be so selfish, Thomas almost died! You really are nothing but a lying, twisted, conniving, foul, evil-!_ And Deceit replied, with hisses lacing the undertones of his every word, _I bet it was_ your _idea to go to the goddamn hospital, wasn't it, Para-Nobody?! I can't believe you, this is all your fault, you watered-down disease, you filthy little traitor!_

And it had upset him. Had bothered him tremendously, to the point where he almost couldn't hang onto the connection with Virgil. But… but he had no right to that, right? He hadn't even been DOWN there. Hadn't confronted the snake with the awful news, hadn't even been involved in the hissing, yelling, throwing, stomping, yet Virgil had turned to him and asked, “you okay?” Before Remus sank away. Like he knew exactly how bothered being that close had him. 

He'd nodded before he left, because he was. Because he wasn't even _down_ there. Besides, that was _yesterday_. He should have been well and truly over the sounds of screaming, the throwing things, the arguing between Virgil and Deceit that had gone on for too long, too loud, he'd heard every word clearly-

No. Nononono. He was fine. Everything was fine. He'd fought too hard to stave off one of his ridiculous temper tantrums and that ridiculous wiggling about he _did not do anymore_. Because it was so unbecoming of a Duke, so silly and stupid and so… so incredibly dumb. 

The sides had tolerated quite a bit. Considering that he was… _him,_ and they still insisted that they loved him or whatever, they had been downright saintly. But he couldn't imagine what would happen if he threw one of those silly tantrums in front of them, if they actually saw what a Remus Style Tantrum looked like. 

Not that stuff where he dragged them into his fantasies, mind you, where he dressed like Shirley Temple and attempted to deepthroat a hockey stick, or where he tied down the neighbour’s cat and dissected it, for science. Those weren't real. Those were all just fun. They weren't real tantrums. 

He'd thrown a few when he was younger, and he'd paid for it up the wazoo.

Granted, Deceit was patient. Deceit was… cruel. Unkind. Unfair. (The words felt forced, even to himself.) But he was patient, always so patient with Remus, holding him still until he stopped his ridiculous wiggling about, telling him calmly that the things he wanted simply weren't practical, that no, he couldn't go up into his room and hide, he had to eat the food deceit had made for them, against his better judgement. And oh how ungrateful Remus was. 

_Madness, you're being ridiculous. Oh, will you stop that nonsensical flailing about, it isn't becoming. Come now, a Duke doesn't care about tastes or textures. Madness, you stop that whining right now or so help me I'm going to get my cane!_

He'd been right to be annoyed. He'd been… _wrong_ about a lot of things, sure, but he _had_ to be right about that. It wasn't too bright. Remus was just being silly. The smells weren't awful. Remus was being whiny. Everything around him wasn't overwhelming to the point of bone crushing agony. Remus was just being a weird little antithesis to whatever the fuck he was. His emotions weren't out of his control. They were never out of his control.

They were _never_ out of his control.

If nothing else Snake told him was true, he found himself begging as he ignored the urge to rock back and forth, let _that_ be true. 

… so, no, the truth was, the Duke didn't know what happened to cause the day-ruining events that _he_ brought about. They weren't caused by any one thing, really. He'd just come down, looking for someone to talk to and strode directly into his absolute hell.

For one thing, someone was starting dinner, and dinner apparently involved cooked onions. And, apparently, when they split, Roman got the part of creativity that actually liked Hell’s Flower Bulb (the bit they did where he ate a raw onion was both the best and worst bit Roman had ever come up with), both cooked and uncooked. Cooked, in remus’s book, was the worst variation of this absolute mistake of foodstuffs. It took what was otherwise just another thing to bite into, and transformed it into this slimy, disgusting mess of stringy, fibrous little things. Like someone picked up all the worms after a big rain, and boiled them. And you were expected to _eat_ them.

He waited until Patton stepped into conversation range to ask, “so, what's cooking, passable-looking?” 

Patton grinned eagerly back at him. “Logan’s trying to extend his _roots_ in the kitchen.”

“Patton, if you cannot observe my progress without making puns, I might need you to leave.”

“Aw, what's the matter, Logan, don't you think my wordplay is _soup_ -er?”

Logan gave a groan that ground on Remus’s nerves like a cheese grater, and most importantly, did not tell him what was filling the commons with the abysmal smell of cooking onions.

Patton must have sensed what he'd done wrong, because he turned back to Remus upon the poor release of his puns. “French onion soup, kiddo,” the paternal figment elabourated patiently. “Should be ready in an hour or two. Not too much deodorant, okay?”

Ah hour or two. Remus now had an _hour or two_ to brace himself for the fact that, very shortly, he'd be choking down the world's worst vegetable in one of its worst possible forms. 

It was bad enough just with meatloaf. Call him crazy, or maybe just really stupid, but he was fairly certain that meatloaf was not supposed to have a _crunch._ But at least there it could be mostly masked. You could, if you really tried, ignore it. No, really. If he kept telling himself this, he'd eventually believe it.

But this, on the other hand, was different. Snake had made french onion soup once, shortly after learning Remus hated onions above all else (he'd sworn he'd forgotten), and, as Remus had learned, the concoction was essentially somebody following the thought process, “let's slather the boiled worm water in cheese, maybe they won't notice!”

That night, and every night deceit served something containing onions, or something else on the very long list of things Remus couldn't stand, Remus would pick and play with his food until Deceit looked over and asked Remus, with that little pang of hurt that Remus knew was followed closely by offense and indignation, “you don't like it?”

It didn't _matter_ if Virgil liked it, or if Virgil ate everything Deceit put before him, no matter how revolting. All he ever seemed to care about was what Remus thought. So, with a smile, an assurance that yes, Dee was the best at everything, _especially_ cooking, he'd choke down as much as he could stomach until he could lie in his room on the floor for a bit.

He was pulled abruptly out of his reverie by the very loud, smelly and overall very unpleasant _HHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSS_ of several metric tons of onions hitting the surface of the sun, followed by the disgusting, stinking clouds of smoke that such an action would bring about. The stench was an unbearable assault on his nostrils. Not even the fun kind of stench _he'd_ created by turning into a monster and setting a village on fire. Ooh, or drowning horses in tar pits. That was always fun. 

Just as Remus was promising himself he'd burn a village of onion merchants to death in the imagination once the ordeal was over, one of the doors upstairs opened and the sound of arguing joined into Logan’s cooking cacophony. 

“- Am not gonna stand here and just let you stomp all over the good name of Cinderella,” Roman was saying loudly, in his Debate Voice. “Really, Doom and Gloom, I thought we settled this the last time-”

“Look, I'm just saying,” Virgil was returning to the prince, sounding in significantly better spirits, despite the previous days… incident… “if Cinderella wanted just one night off, why didn't she just leave?”

“Oh, MY GOD, of all the victim-blaming, slack-jawed-! It says she's abused, it flat-out tells you-!”

“Where? Where does it say that, princey, in your fanfiction?”

“Well, I guess we're just going to have to watch it again so I can show you!”

“Fine, prove yourself wrong why don't you?”

Their argument continued and continued as they sat down on the couch and flipped the movie on Roman’s laptop, Virgil tossing a halfhearted “hey Remus” in the dukes general direction that was lost amidst the fighting, near-constant fighting, shut up, shut up shUT UP-

Nononono don't you dare start rocking now Remus, you haven't done that in years you need to just fucking chill out-

Suddenly, Remus found himself very aware of things he didn't otherwise notice if he didn't think about them. The ticking clock on the wall, for example. The way Roman's voice took on a nagging, southern tone when he was irritated, or how Virgil was sitting on the edge of the sofa, far too close for comfort but Remus never said anything never say anything they'll throw you in The Hole-

It was all too much, all too quickly. Suddenly everyone was just far too closer to him, everything was just a bit too loud, his mind reeling with intrusive thought after thought, the idea of having to choke down cooked onions was just involved in everything he thought of, and they were alive in his fantasies, wriggling and writhing like worms as they clotted his throat, and he couldn't quite articulate why but the lights, which _never_ posed an issue (falsehood, you hate it out here, the damn things are always like this) were suddenly way too bright and burning into his skull, through his eyelids, searing _burning_ agony, burning burning burning

burningburningburning _burningburningburningBURNING-_

_MAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP_ **_STOP-_ **

_Thunk_

He knew that noise. He knew the heat in his head it brought about. And you know? In a way, it was almost relieving to lose control like this. At least he knew this part always led to calm.

~~~

All it took was an out-of-place _thunk_ to suddenly set Patton's dad instinct on high alert. 

_Thunk thunk thunk_

_Thunk_

_Thunk thunk thunk_

_Thunk_

Patton looked up to where Remus had, until moments ago, been quietly crouching on the tv stand and observing him as he ate a cookie. He'd looked comfortable, and so Patton had not questioned it, or asked him to move, which was huge for him (“the only buts here go in chairs!”), but upon hearing that, coupled with a kind of half-scream, half-whine, his attention was immediately back on the Duke. 

Remus was still sitting on the tv stand, but now, he was considerably more upset, and rightfully so, because he was… god, it was the weirdest thing. He'd curled up one of his fists, and was rhythmically punching himself in the head with it, whimpering and whining as he hit himself repeatedly. One hit. Pause. Three hits. Pause. Over and over again. As he did this, he sort of growled to himself, making a vibrating noise deep in the back of his throat like, “ _grrruh, grrr-rrr-ruh, grrruh, grrr-rrr-ruh._ ” Sort of like a dog, except it sounded way too human, and pained. Calling it growling wasn't even right, it was like this middle ground between groaning and growling. 

Patton had no idea if this was him trying to force intrusive thoughts from his head, or if it was just Remus deciding his skull would make a good bongo. And frankly, he didn't care. He just wanted it to stop.

“Remus!” He cried, dropping the cookie he was eating to the floor and throwing himself over the couch, toward his Duke, strange son. “Remus, _what are you doing?!_ ”

He didn't say what he was doing, wasn't it obvious? But the groan-growls got louder, more frantic and noticeable as he continued to pound away on his skull.

“Remus!” He called over the cacophony, terror and confusion evident in his voice. “Talk to me!”

Everyone was staring now. Virgil and Roman stopped debating. Logan peered out over the cooking station to see what was happening. The Duke knew this, saw them turn to stare, no, guys, no, Duke-don't-look, that's the tag, that's the _rule._

Remus didn't answer Patton, but the noise suddenly rose to a sharp crescendo, more of a whine than anything as Remus stuck his hand into his mouth and bit with a force that made you wince just by looking at it. He rocked back and forth, flesh gritted and bruising (not _breaking_ , at least, praise Jesus) between his teeth. The noise grew louder and louder until it hurt, but Patton wasn't deterred. 

“Nononono, kiddo, don't, stop, stop!” Patton grabbed hold of the duke’s hands, trying simultaneously to drag them out of his mouth and to keep him from hitting himself anymore. He kept a tight hold on his wrists, panic overtaking him as he asked, “Remus, what's goin’ on, kiddo?” In the calmest tone he could manage. 

Remus didn't reply, but the sudden restraint scared him enough that the whine became a proper scream without the hand in his mouth to muffle it. There was no sanity or conversation to be had. Just more screaming, now coupled with thrashing, desperately trying to pull his hands back. The screaming was mostly that odd sort of whining, his thoughts racing by too quickly to make out, but Patton _thought_ he caught a brief glimpse of his face morphing into a sly smile, surrounded by shimmering scales, chucking and crooning _oh madness, you thought I was gone?_ And there may have been something like, _stupid-tantrum-stupid-tantrum-stop-it-now-stop-it-now-don't-think-anymore-don't-feel-anymore-don't-don't-don't-don't_ , but Patton was too busy trying to corral Remus to listen. 

“Remus,” he called as calmly as he could as Remus thrashed and screamed in his hold, “Remus, I'm just holding your hands, you're not in troub-” the heel of one of the duke’s hands connected with Patton's nose. He was aware of a gush of wetness from his left nostril. _“Ow-!”_

The thrashing abruptly stopped. Remus finally stopped screaming, but he may have also not been breathing anymore, he looked so panicked and desperate. Like a deer in the headlights.

“D-dad-?” He finally gasped. It had to be Dad, Deceit dropped his disguise when you hurt him, but dad was still here, and no, now he hates you, _you_ made him hate you-

“Remus,” Patton began, but before he could assure Remus that it was okay, that he'd gotten hurt before, that he was okay and _Remus_ was okay and everything _was_ okay… Remus decided on those things. 

He ripped his wrists out of Patton's grasp, and before anyone could stop him, tore up the stairs and, presumably, locked himself in his room.

~~~

Remus sobbed miserably as The Heavy Cloud weighed on him, for what he could only assume would be the last time. 

_Now you've done it Remus, you've really screwed the pooch without a condom haven't you, you didn't even make it to Christmas, what do you think they're gonna do with you, you think they're gonna leave you somewhere, huh, they gonna leave you alone, or maybe they'll lock you up and lose the key, or maybe they'll just throw you in the pit and you'll fade all away and be gone and you won't hurt anyone anymore and you'll disappear and you won't hurt Patton or Roman or Virgil or bother Logan but that's more kindness than you deserve isn't it Remus?_

Remus sobbed, forgetting about all the rules about arguing with the Mean Voice and how to make it stop, because he didn't deserve to make it stop, because he'd started throwing one of his ridiculous tantrums right in the middle of the living room, and he had felt them staring at him, Virgil with his weird judgemental stare _(woah I thought you'd stopped doing this are you still this pathetic and weird and awful?)_ and Roman with his dumb, deadpan of confusion as Logan stared at him with those eyes that made him feel like he was being x-rayed, and… and Dad, with his confusion, and disgust, and... and _horror_...

One minute he'd been flailing about unabashedly. Then Patton had had him in a grip like a vice and he wouldn't let him bite or hit even though he needed to _needed to NEEDED TO_. For some reason, this was the most unbearable thing, Patton's touch was like deciding to wear bracelets of red hot iron, nononono get them off get them off gET THEM OFF-

He'd felt his hand connect, and heard Patton cry out, before he could stop himself.

He hadn't meant to hurt Patton. Really, he hadn't. You have to believe him, he hadn't meant to hit him, make his nose bleed like that. He'd just wanted Patton to let go. Yet regardless of what the harbinger of intrusive thoughts had _meant,_ there had stood their father figure figment, with his stare confused and ashamed and his nose gushing just that shade of crimson. That stare, so accusatory and confused and scared, scared of _him_ , that Remus couldn't take it. He'd fled. It was cowardly but he'd fled. 

His room was safe. For now. But soon, the others would be there, to tell him his punishment for pummeling their patriarch. Because attacking Patton, even if he didn't mean to…

You couldn't do something that abysmal without punishment. 

And yes, there they were, the knocks at the door, the voices, going for tender and concerned, the _please come out Remus we just wanna talk_ Patton gave only slightly muffled by his clogged (swollen, broken, ruined) nose. He only left when Logan cane and, with muffled words, guided him away.

But, that couldn't last forever. He knew this.

In the meantime, though, the quiet was… nice. 

~~~

After forever, there was a knock at the door. 

“Remus?” A pause. “... _please, I know you're in there-”_

The door creaked open loudly and obnoxiously. It opened onto the Dukedom, which looked… different. It was pitch black, for one thing, and as Patton stepped into it, he noticed the floor was solid, but with a touch of softness to it, like those rubber mats with the puzzle piece shapes in preschool. Except these were just… black. Everything, as far as you could see, was black. Nothing else.

Well, no, there was something else. A dense cloud of mist hung low over the ground, with enough space for someone to lie on, just between it and then ground. Walking through it didn't seem to displace it. It was a bit like trying to walk through thick mud, but Patton pushed along, noting that it wasn't cold here, the way one would expect. Rather, it was kind of pleasantly warm, with only the mist being a chilly sort of damp feeling that wasn't really wet.

Before delving forth into the unknown, Patton picked up Cecaelia from the bed and rushed back in, the door clicking behind him. He walked along for a while, slowly and carefully, until he noticed something amiss in the sea of black and churning white. Beneath the clouds, curled in the fetal position, was Remus. Or, he assumed it was Remus, all he could make out was a blob of green, whimpering and sobbing quietly. 

Cautiously, Patton stepped over to the child he'd unwittingly adopted. He didn't get on his level yet, though. “Sugar Booger, you know I can see you, right?”

There was no answer. The blob of green just remained huddled under the fog. 

“... Remus?” He finally said, “this isn't a hiding thing, is it?”

Remus shook his head, limited a bit by the fact that he was lying on his side. 

“Okay, do you mind if I sit here for a bit, kiddo?”

Why was he doing this? Why was Patton still pretending to be kind? Why on earth would Patton still feel obligated to pretend he loved him? Honestly, just throw him down the hole and be done with it! Instead of voicing this, Remus just shrugged. 

Patton curled up under The Heavy Cloud beside Remus. It was a bit like one of virgil's weighted blankets, except you could breathe through it. “Remus. Do you know why I grabbed you?”

He nodded, because he did know. It was scary, it was bad, it probably upset the others to have to watch it, and he'd hit Patton for his trouble. 

“Why'd you hit me then, Remus?”

Remus sobbed and shook his head because words were impossible but he needed Patton to believe him, to understand he didn't _mean_ to-

“Hey, hey-” fingers burned on his arm, he pulled away and bit away his urge to rock. “It's okay, it's okay, I know you didn't do it on purpose. I just… Remus, please, roll over kiddo, I wanna see your face.”

There was so much pleading in Patton's voice Remus couldn't refuse. Even if it meant seeing Patton all wrong, all ruined, black and red and swollen and bruised and broken and-

And… and… whole, perfectly fine, except for a piece of something up his left nostril.

“See? I'm okay. You're okay. It's all okay. Hey… do you know sign kiddo?”

He'd learned a bit, when Virgil was really getting into Tumblr. Virgil had tried to tell him about nonverbal days, but he was the Duke, he didn't _get upset_ , he just threw silly little nonsense tantrums for no reason. But still… learning the little bit he had helped. It had been nice, at least, to have the option available. Or it would've been, if Dee had learned it too.

“Okay. So I want you to sign if you can now, ok? Anything you want.”

Anything? Well, that was easy, really. _I-M S-O-R-R-Y_ danced clumsily and clunkily across his fingers. 

“I forgive you, Remus. But we do need to figure out where to go from here.”

_D-O-N-T W-A-N-N-A G-O I-N T-H-E H-O-L-E_

Patton gasped before he was done. “Oh baby. Baby, baby, baby, no, nononononono, never, _never,_ I promise; no matter what happens you're here for good and nothing can change that. Nobody's gonna go in the hole.”

_D-O-N-T W-A-N-N-A F-A-D-E_

“Oh, sweetheart, I don't want that either. I want you here, with me. And I want you here _all_ the time, not just when you're feeling good. And when you're feeling bad I want you to talk to one of us. It doesn't have to be me. Just someone. Just so you don't do this to yourself anymore.”

Remus finally trusted his voice. “Why…?”

“Because I love you and I don't want you to hurt yourself.”

“Doesn't… hurt,” he wheezed out, because it was true, it didn't hurt. It felt better after he hit or bit and he felt calmer. Quieter. Wasn't that supposed to be good?

(Granted he'd felt the same way after flailing his hands around nonsensically but that was not an option.)

Flashes of his thoughts raced by before he could stop them. More onion-related fantasies. Memories of Deceit, holding him still until he stopped flapping, snarling his demands that Remus “behave like a Duke this instant”, the disgusting, unbearable feeling of choking down food that gave him that awful, squirmy feeling up and down his skin, crawling into his very essence-

And… and the meltdown in the living room, the burning burning _burning_ of every sensation into his skin, his eyes, his nose, his ears, coupled by the overwhelming weight of emotion that just seemed to escalate and escalate and escalate and it hurt, it all hurt so much and it would never stop, the pain would never stop.

Patton hesitated, his eyes drawn to Remus's hand. If every sensation in his kiddos body was burning on the way in, did that include a hug from his dad? Then how on earth was he supposed to fix this? 

_Well, Patton,_ said the smarter voice in his head, _why don't you ask_ Remus _that?_

“Can I touch you or no?”

“Some… okay.”

Patton gently took Remus’s hand- the one he'd been biting on- and kissed it right on the bruise. “Kiddo… I'm starting to think you don't actually understand why I grabbed you.”

Remus didn't reply as Patton summoned an ice pack he gently pressed to the heel of the Duke’s hand. He slid Cecaelia over to her daddy, who took her gratefully, fingers running frantically along her soft, plush body. 

“I'm sorry I grabbed you. It's just… all that scared me. And it's not because _you're_ scary, kiddo, but I know you like to be and that's okay. I mean, sometimes your scary things are fun. Remember that nifty little tune you wrote?”

He nodded, almost smiling as he recalled the way Patton had responded. How delighted he'd been when Patton declared the song to be horrible, how excited he'd been to go back to Dee and tell him about how successful he'd been… right until he failed. 

“See, kiddo, what scared me _today_ was that you were sad and upset and hurting yourself, and I didn't know what to do to fix it. And all I could think was, ‘Patton, Remus is hurting himself right just now, and you gotta make him stop, however it takes.’ And I know,” he hurried on, stopping Remus before he could voice his counterpoint. “I know you said it doesn't hurt. But anything that leaves this kind of impression on you…”

Remus didn't say anything back, but admittedly that made sense. The calluses on his hands and the bruises on his face were always annoying, but that was it. They were just things to cover up before going out, so no one saw them and made unfair, ridiculous assumptions about Dee-

_“They're going to think I beat you, Madness! What's that going to mean for me, hm? Do you know how many Fanders are going to hear that and declare me a pariah?! Then I'll never be accepted! You think Thomas would write me an arc after_ that _?! There's no way!! Just because their feeble little minds can't handle the unpleasant parts of your existence! Just because_ you _couldn't pretend not to be broken for_ one day _, madness,_ one fucking day-!! _”_

“Remus Emanuel Creativity Sanders, you are _not_ broken,” Patton said firmly, and Remus realized abruptly he'd been projecting without meaning to. He flinched, and wanted nothing more than to be held, but his entire body was still so tense and so sensitive, like billions of strategic needles had replaced his every follicle and touch receptor. 

“You know, if there's ever a problem, _any_ problem, you can bring it up, right?”

Remus was silent, weighing his voice and his fingers as options before setting on speaking, no matter how tough words were, because his hands meant letting go of his octopus. “No… no, I'm sorry, dad, it was… silly… I was-”

“Shhh. No. _No._ Whatever else you're gonna say, you're wrong, you are _not_ silly, young man, you're allowed to feel terrible, and you're allowed to _act like_ you feel terrible. I just wish you didn't have to hurt yourself to stop.” He slowly reached out, giving Remus the option to refuse, but did gently stroke the goose egg forming on his forehead. “What can we do about this?” _Tell me how to make you stop feeling terrible._

“I… I just… it was loud, and bright, and-” Remus very quickly realized he didn't have the words to explain his weird, yucky feelings about Deceit, even if he didn't still feel all stupid and bad and awful. “Onions,” he finished lamely.

Patton blinked at that. “Logan cooking onions upset you?” 

Nodding was easier. 

“You don't like onions?”

He shook his head. 

“You've eaten onions before.”

“Raw isn't the worst. Cooked is… bad.”

“Why? The flavour?”

A quick head shake. “Not… when they're crunchy, but slimy and wet and… bad.”

Patton quickly thought of all the dishes he served that contained onions, raw, cooked or otherwise, and felt as though he'd been dropped abruptly into a chasm of guilt. “Oh, _honey_ , I'm so sorry. It's okay, don't worry about it, we'll get you something else for dinner tonight, okay? I'll get it whenever you're ready.” He then added, as if by means of an afterthought, “you don't have to eat with us if you don't wanna. If you're still a bit upset, you can chill in here for a bit.”

“But Logan-”

“-Can deal. I promise. He knows better than anyone that there's no rush for you. And… Remus?”

Remus grunted to prove he was listening. 

“Is there… is there anything you wanna talk about?”

Remus sniffed. Shook his head. No, not today, today he felt tired and weird and dizzy and hazy and he just wanted to lie here a bit longer. 

“That's okay, kiddo.” Patton paused. Then he said, “y'know, this is one neat cloud. You like when it's heavy?”

Remus nodded. The weight bearing overtop of him always brought him some strange comfort when the tantrum was finally over, and while he couldn't quite understand it, 

“Virgil has a blanket like that. It was a present from Roman. He puts it on when he's having an attack. Maybe if you ask, we can arrange something like that for you.”

Remus nodded, but privately he knew he couldn't ask, because Roman might say yes, and then he'd be indebted to him.

And then, then… well, he wasn't sure what was next. But he knew owing people was bad, very very bad, almost as bad as crying or being stupid. It was the one thing Dee had never bothered to try and explain, well aware that madness was too stupid to understand. 

“Any chance I could touch you again? Maybe you wanna be scratched?”

Remus looked at Patton, confusion apparently obvious in his gaze, because Patton did that thing where he kept his expression calm and soft but you could tell you'd hurt him somehow. 

“That's okay, Kiddo. Just… here.” He shifted so he was sitting up, his top half poking out of the cloud as he crossed his legs beneath him. He summoned a pillow from the void, setting it in the pit formed in his lap, then patted it. “Snuggle up here. If you want,” he added hurriedly. 

Remus wanted. Slowly, as if his body were made of concrete, he dragged himself over by his elbows, settling his head and shoulder onto the pillow, trying not to think about how close he was to dick sucking range or how Patton would've never allowed this mere months ago. 

He jolted when something touched him. “Shhhh, shshsh, only me,” Patton assured gently, but the touch stopped. Touch was no longer agony though, so that was nice. “Mind if I try again?”

He gave a soft grunt of agreement. And he was elated that he had. 

Gently, slowly, Patton's fingernails began scratching gently at the down hairs on the back of his neck. He scrunched up reflexively, then relaxed, almost leaning back into the touch with a comical sigh. 

“That ok, sweetie?” Patton asked gently.

Remus didn't answer. There was no need. 

The hands became more brash as the minutes went by. The hand slowly began scratching up and down his neck, growing further and further in its strokes so slowly you didn't notice it until he was scratching from the base of your neck to the hairline of your scalp, and you didn't mind at all.

The hand settled for his head, eventually, when it was decided the scratching was okay, and scratched there as gently as it could while also being firm. Hands ran through his unruly, unkempt, unwashed hair, except it wasn't unkempt or unwashed anymore, just… unruly. He had access to the household bathroom now. And washing his hair, where it had once been an ordeal and a half, was now just a part of the routine. And a part that wasn't actually that bad. 

And this… he could tolerate this. 

He tried to remember what had triggered his silly little tantrum in the first place. He thought maybe it had something to do with Patton touching him. That seemed so silly now, silly silly silly-

“Remus. You aren't silly.”

Huh. He must've said the quiet part out loud. Well, he supposed that _was_ his whole deal.

“Kiddo, can I snap you into something comfy?”

He nodded lazily, aware of Patton's voice and was aware of his clothes shifting into something soft and warm against his skin. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that the scratching didn't stop.

Because if the scratching stopped, Patton would have stopped liking him, and he'd go in the hole, he'd go in the hole, he'd go _in the hole hole hole hole hole hole-_

The bundle in his lap wriggled and squirmed, whining in the back of his throat. Patton reacted immediately, stopping his assault on the boy's scalp to blindly look for landmarks that indicated the bridge of his son's nose. Once there, he slowly dragged his finger down the duke's forehead, between his eyebrows and off his nose. As his finger travelled down, he uttered a quiet, “sssshhhhhh.”

Remus couldn't articulate what about the touch was so soothing, but within seconds, his eyes were shut, the awful world tucked away behind them. He gave a tiny grunt, but there was no more squirming. 

It took four forehead-to-nose strokes, each punctuated by a boop, to put him down. But eventually, the poor thing was asleep. 

~~~

Remus fell asleep in Patton’s lap, dressed in his raccoon onesie and clutching Cecaelia. Patton took a moment to look at the Duke, really _properly_ look at him, the way you couldn't when he was awake. 

He liked to do this with each of his kiddos- they were all Thomas, yes, but they were all different versions of Thomas, all with different features and faces and bodies. Patton, for instance, knew he looked a lot like Thomas’s father and grandfather, at least with the definite chub to his frame and the laugh lines mingling with freckles on his face. He made no effort to hide his mess of curly hair, unlike most of the others. But his sons… they were different. And you could only get a real look at them when they weren't consciously keeping up appearances. 

Roman was taller, more lean and muscular than any of them, and had always kept himself sort of ageless, a lofty, godlier version of whatever Thomas was. But when he was asleep, you could see he was clearly a very tired-looking 19, his wavy hair a mess as he slept on in piles of forgotten work that Patton would set aside, leaving the prince vulnerable to be tucked in among his copious stuffed lions. (Of course, gently shutting his snoring maw was part of the routine.)

Virgil, as much as he went for the look of a dark, sullen teenager, always looked no older than twelve in the arms of the sandman, a light spray of freckles across his cheeks and nose that, in waking hours, would've been hidden for all he was worth. 

The same rang true for Logan, Mr. Mature and Adult always looked no older than 17 in his more vulnerable moments of slumber. Patton could easily pick him up and tuck him into bed, for as tall as he liked to make himself during consciousness. 

Remus was… a bit different. 

He was so small. Only about 14 or so, and so, so, so light, snuggling into the warmth his dad offered, and… yep, sure enough, beneath the smeared eyeshadow, a smattering of freckles. Just like the ones that so embarrassed Logan and Virgil.

Patton made a note to ask about them as he cleared the remains of the makeup away with a conjured rag, then scooped up the tiny creativity and carried him out of the imagination.

Once he was back in the safety of his bed, sleeping off the humiliation and exhaustion his tantrum must have brought about, Patton crept out of the room and back downstairs. 

Logan, Virgil and Roman were still there, more or less waiting for him. The movie was playing again, quieter this time, but the second Patton approached, Roman scrambled to turn it off, only to look foolish when Patton was alone. 

“Where is he?” Asked Roman, both concerned and urgent. 

“His room. He's resting,” Patton said gently. Logan scribbled something down and it was then that Patton noticed that the page was almost entirely filled with scribbles of Logan's handwriting. 

“Did you manage to determine the source of the Duke’s emotional distress?” Logan asked, not looking up from the pad. 

“He mentioned being overwhelmed by a lot of stuff all at once. Noise, smells, that kind of thing?”

“Smells?” Repeated Roman, sounding dumbstruck. But Virgil looked understanding. 

“Onions, right?” He asked quietly, and cursing when Patton nodded. “Fuck. I thought… maybe, now that he wasn't… _fuck_.”

Logan’s pen might have caught fire for how quickly he was writing down his thoughts. “Virgil, do you care to explain?”

“Well, when we were growing up, Remus hated onions and he could never explain why. I asked, and he'd just scream at me.”

“Did he express his pleasure to Dee?”

“Psh, yeah, and he paid for it up the ass. Anyway, he usually ate them, but I always thought he looked… I dunno. Uncomfortable. Even for him.”

“And, what did Dee think?”

“What do you _think_ he thought?” Virgil then adopted a voice that was clearly meant to be his best impression of deceit, which came off as pompous, condescending and singsong. “ _‘He doesn't really_ care _, dear one, he's just being difficult.’_ ” Virgil slumped back in his seat and folded his arms with a huff. “Jackass,” he muttered. 

“Language,” said Patton reflexively. 

Well, thought Logan, now more certain than ever they needed to get Picani in there. That was _very_ interesting. “And the self-regulatory stimulation, is that always self harming in nature?”

“I mean… he used to bounce and flap his hands around when he was really little, like-” he began falling one of his hands in an approximation of what Remus must have looked like. “-like that, and the noise, he'd do that too. But Deceit thought it was annoying and made him stop. He said the biting and hitting and weird noises were more in line with his function.”

Everyone stared at him in utter disbelief. But frankly, no one was even shocked anymore. Mostly, it was just… disgust. None of it directed at him, but it was there, and you bet your ass anxiety was aware of it. 

“... and I wanna say… that's… bad?”

“Somewhat,” agreed Logan. “Would anything in particular trigger these episodes?”

“Well, Dee used to tell me about Thomas’s first day of kindergarten when he was talking about how awful Remus is- or I guess was, so I guess that was really bad, but usually, he’d only start if…” immediately, his face fell, as realization hit him like a boulder. “... if we’d start… fighting in the commons…” immediately, the anxious side groaned and held his face. “Oh my _god_ I’m an idiot.”

“No you’re not,” Patton said immediately, reaching out to pet his anxious son. Though, privately, he wished he would’ve known about this before the crescendo of today. 

After a pause, Logan finally spoke. “Roman, the motivation, is it being used for anything?”

“Uh… nnnnnnnnno?”

“Good, you'll need it. Patton, I advise you get ready. First thing tomorrow, you and I will be summoning Picani.”

And with that, off Logan went to prepare himself for the incoming therapy. 

As he did, he glanced at the notes he'd scribbled down. At least whatever was legible in his frantic urge to get his thoughts down. 

_Repetitive movements/noises. Hypersensitivity_ _? Confirmed hypersensitivity_ _to light, smell onions and noise. Urge to self stimulate. Ask Picani about potential autism diagnosis._

He sighed as he sat at the computer to type out his notes. Even without this development, and without his surmounting emotional workload, he knew the session was going to be a nightmare. 

But if they didn't do it soon, he'd lose all his nerve. 

**Author's Note:**

> Wooooo! Okay! Once again, Logan is the only one with his shit remotely together! I promise y'all, therapy is UP NEXT!!! Let's sort out some issues, starting with Patton! He needs to talk this out!!
> 
> You know, I'm not sure what the point of all this was, but... Well, I hope y'all liked it, whatever it was.


End file.
